


A Collaboration and Solo

by Semiotaxonomy



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Poofing, it's in that "I ship it but this story isn't necessarily shippy" zone, morp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 11:31:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10763379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semiotaxonomy/pseuds/Semiotaxonomy
Summary: In which Lapis is faced with a difficult question: whereareyou supposed to put one of those?





	A Collaboration and Solo

Lapis turned the green stone over in her hands and wondered again if she should feel upset. Steven certainly had been when he handed her over, promising with tears in his eyes that he'd come over again tomorrow, as soon as everything was under control. And Peridot, of course, was fine. They were gems and this was normal.

It was only odd to see her like this, and maybe that was why Lapis couldn't stop looking. Peridot was convex, with blunted edges and no bezel. There was a faint translucency to her, up close, that was normally hidden by her form. She was small and cold and it was very, very odd. Maybe this was something like the way humans felt about being seen naked; although they'd built quite a bit of culture around that, and nobody was _eager_ to see someone's bare gem.

When she looked up again, it was because the sun was nearly rising. Pumpkin had at some point settled down at Lapis's feet. She couldn't stand in the doorway of the barn forever, or however long peridots took. Or would the cage of Lapis's fingers be enough to restrain her from forming? She squeezed and felt the unyielding resistance of stone, the same as any lifeless rock outside. What was she supposed to do with this thing?

What did they do with disembodied gems on Homeworld while they waited? Lapis couldn't quite remember; something utilitarian. Had she even seen one in person before? Not like this, surely, never so intimately. But then, she'd never _known_ someone else well enough to even be interested as a curiosity. That kind of familiarity was an Earth way, not a Homeworld one. The two of them, and everyone else, were making their own standard practices, trying out rules and tossing them away as often and easily as they kept them.

It was so quiet.

Unwilling to test herself against the silence she moved through the barn delicately, without disturbing anything. It took a moment to find not merely a flat surface, but one that wasn't covered in enough junk to legitimately lose a gem in. It took another moment after she'd done it for Lapis to realize she'd literally put Peridot on a pedestal. Specifically, a narrow crate stood on its side and draped with somebody's long cast-off shower curtain, which had been the intended display for a project Peridot would've called _Lather, Repeat_ had soap behaved the way she wanted it to.

Lapis took a long appraising look at the scene, and decided it was fitting, and that she didn't want to hang around in here. On her way out she scooped up Pumpkin, who had been sleeping where it lay but accepted the disruption amiably -- how many days would it take for the animal-plant thing to realize something was wrong with one of its owners, anyway? It didn't matter. They flew off to watch the sun come up.

When she returned, she had a new whim. Moving with slow, precise purpose, Lapis retrieved Peridot's fiery paint cans and arranged them at the base of the pedestal like feet; after a moment of evaluation she kicked one over and then was satisfied.

Despite which, some time later, she found herself digging out her Paulette t-shirt (it had come, she was told, from a thrift store in Bayburg, and never been worn since, but was one of the most vital steps the Crystal Gems had ever taken to redeem themselves, in Lapis's estimation) and hanging it up as a backdrop. And then a length of wire mesh ended up wound loosely around like a nest. Pumpkin contributed by dragging its bed over.

Peridot looked so calm, a small simple object sitting placidly on display. She was never calm. She'd been in a fight, and a gem without a body had no way to tell what was going on around them; for all Peridot knew now, her gem was in the simulated belly of some corruption, her allies shattered. How did anyone ever resist the terrified urgency to destroy themselves rushing back? Lapis could remember that she had been more confused than scared herself, lying in a battlefield some six thousand years ago. That had been a mistake. She found a can that still had actual paint in it, half-dried, and made broad flaking streaks of orange across the wire.

All in all, it came out looking something like a shrine to Peridot, which was not good. But, then, when Peridot had a body she was a shrine to herself, crammed as full of her personality as four-feet-plus of hard light could hold. She would never see it anyway; when she reformed the display would be destroyed. If this was morp, then that performance was part of it. Peridot wouldn't have liked this piece, Lapis thought, and the notion pleased her.

When Steven did indeed come by, she spent a vertigo moment on the edge of embarrassment -- then he clapped his hands together, dashed back to the warp pad, and returned with, of all amazing things, the severed limb enhancer foot. They made it a pedestal on the pedestal and together set the gem very carefully on top. Peridot _definitely_ wouldn't have liked this piece.

Hours later, while they were picking favorite special moves from the tournament arc of Pretty Hairstylist, the shrine stirred. Lapis caught it from the corner of her eye and, for a moment, startled with the primal twang of _something was moving in her home_ , and...

The surprise turned into a knot inside her, impenetrable, immobile as Steven hopped off of the couch and ran to go see. There it was, _there_ it was at last: the concern, the regret, the prospect of living alone. Far too late and never needed in the first place, but breathtaking, like a flower blooming suddenly out of season.

Peridot knocked her pedestals over, filling the barn with metal crashes and her own confused squawking. Steven and Pumpkin both liked it, at least. "Are you trying to decorporealize me a second time?" she griped as the former helped her up and the latter bounced around hoping she'd do it again. "Because I'll have you know I spared no effort on this form, and you will find it is utterly flawless." With that she sent herself from irritated to giddy. "Look, look, _look where I put the star!_ Did you guys manage to hold out without me? I see you brought me to the barn? Where's..."

Peridot was looking at her. Lapis couldn't move. The silence grew thick and frustrating while she fought to find her voice. Finally, she said, "Your hair looked better before."

" _What?!_ Lapis, you're joking, right? That's not funny!"

By the time Steven went home Lapis had already relented, because Peridot was set to keep fussing nonstop until the next Homeworld invasion; considering she didn't need to sleep or breathe, it wasn't worth it. Apparently the hair was crossing a line. Peridot kicked a wayward can across the room, then realized she'd missed a chance to use her powers and made it stand up where it had stopped. There was no concern of cleaning up the mess, fortunately, because random objects lying around was the barn's natural state anyway. She looked at Lapis, questions written plainly on her face that she'd learned were pointless to ask.

What she asked instead was, "Did Pumpkin miss me?"

Lapis understood this. Regardless, she couldn't help but snort. "Pumpkin didn't notice."

There was paint on her hands and she began thinking about what she'd make next time. There would be a next time, wouldn't there? Not too soon, or even Lapis would have to have a word with the Crystal Gems, but -- if the two of them stayed near each other for hundreds of years, for thousands, it was bound to come up once in a while. This was one of the bold new rules of Earth friendship, then. Maybe Peridot would even get to return the favor someday, although Lapis had no intention of getting herself into such a situation.

Peridot, meanwhile, hmphed and said, "Well, that's because I was so admirably fast. She _would_ have."

"Yeah, she would have," Lapis agreed.

**Author's Note:**

> I just had a dire need to sink my teeth into their friendship a while back.


End file.
